Greenpeace rebrands Boris Johnson’s leave campaign. ‘Europhobe parties across Europe are anxious to repeat the feat of their British counterparts: using distortions, half-truths, racism and delusional fantasies to cheat their way to victory.’
Photograph: Jack Taylor/Getty Images

A prospect far more threatening than Brexit is emerging: a reasonable deal for the UK. Reports from Brussels suggest a compromise is doing the rounds under which it would be given continued access to the single market plus concessions on freedom of movement. This would be a grave mistake. If Britain comes out of this looking anything less than severely diminished it will be devastating for the EU.

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Call it Project Pain. When the EU starts negotiating the terms of its divorce from the UK it must aim to inflict maximum political and economic damage. Financial powers should be repatriated from London and it must become nearly impossible for Asian, US or African multinationals to continue to have their EU headquarters in the UK. Universities, companies and cities must receive generous help to attract the best minds from their UK rivals, for instance by offering EU passports. There are many more blows the EU can deliver to make sure the UK faces a dark decade of economic stagnation and political isolation. Ideally, its economy should not get back to its pre-referendum size before, say, 2030.

The first argument for hurting the UK is by now well rehearsed: prevent another reckless exit on the basis of lies. Europhobe parties across Europe are anxious to repeat the feat of their British counterparts: using distortions, half-truths, racism and delusional fantasies to cheat their way to victory. The Europhobes are fully aware that there exists a clear trade-off between national sovereignty and economic prosperity, with more of the one meaning less of the other. They also know that if they frame the dilemma of European cooperation in these terms they will never win. So they lie, cheat and incite. Taking a leaf from the leave campaign playbook, they are sure to dismiss as Project Fear warnings by experts about the disastrous consequences. What better way to puncture these myths than pointing to the economic disaster that will be Britain?

As with all divorces, hurting one’s former partner is sure to provoke feelings of guilt. But these will dissipate as Europeans finally face up to just how abusive the political relationship has been. Especially in the past decade, the EU has been patient as the UK government has missed no opportunity to undermine, disparage, blackmail and even actively sabotage European politics. Push harder than anyone for enlargement, as the UK did, then criticise the EU for being too big and unwieldy. Pull yourself out of the coalition with Angela Merkel’s party in the European parliament to join a motley crew of Europhobe fringe parties, as David Cameron did with his Conservatives, then claim you are not getting anything done in the European parliament.

Much of the British political elite has been using the EU as a football for their own irresponsibly petty ends

When the eurozone was hanging by a thread, George Osborne thought it necessary to announce to the world that no country was better prepared for Grexit than Britain. Then, when there was a deal on the euro mess, the UK vetoed it. Think, too, of when France was trying to reduce inequality by raising taxes on the rich, and the UK government sadistically rolled out the red carpet for French millionaires. Remember the daily heaps of abuse aimed at Europe in British newspapers over the past decades. And then there is Nigel Farage, who seems to have a compulsive need to insult his colleagues in Brussels.

The fact is that much of the British political elite has been using the EU as a football for their own irresponsibly petty ends. Cameron promised a referendum for party political purposes while expecting to trade that promise in coalition talks with the Lib Dems – only to see his side win an absolute majority in the elections, forcing him to act on his promise. Cameron then went to Brussels to blackmail other European leaders into giving him “concessions” – otherwise he would back the leave camp. Boris Johnson, for his part, believed that losing the referendum would land him the job of next prime minister so he joined leave – only to see his side win.

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Which brings us to the second argument for Project Pain. Not since the Iraq war has British democracy looked less legitimate, and the parallels are striking: the use of deceitful manipulation to sell the idea, the macho swagger of its proponents and delusions about the outcome. There is no hope of British democracy cleansing itself until the architects of this Brexit disaster are hung out to dry, their careers and reputations destroyed. Indeed, this will be a good way to measure a decade from now if Project Pain has been a success. Will the names of Michael Gove, Boris Johnson, Andrea Leadsom and Nigel Farage evoke the same disgust as Tony Blair and George W Bush do today?

Calling for the ruining of a fellow European country feels terrible, but it is not Europe’s fault that the UK has voted to pit itself against a bloc nine times its size. Still, Europeans need to remind themselves that millions of Britons did everything they could to prevent this catastrophe. It is vital, too, that European leaders – as Merkel and François Hollande did last week – continue to emphasise that this very raw deal for the UK is not about punishment – indeed, the EU has far too much on its plate to indulge in therapeutic vindictiveness.

Project Pain is about protecting the EU from arsonists elsewhere and about helping British democracy reinvent itself. Were the latter to happen this story would have at least something of a happy ending, and we could look back on it perhaps not as Project Pain but as Project Tough Love.